That was a joke, right? If this happened in most Asian countries (eg. Singapore), that kid would have been beaten and had his video camera smashed.

Don't know what your impression is of Singapore but this definitely does not transpire in Singapore. The Singaporean Police might have more rights to arrest an individual but they most definitely cannot beat you to pulp for no reason.

you CAN Legally record in a public area a public official in the course of their duties,

HOWEVER, if your presence, wheather or not your are recording, taking photos, etc is a disturbance in the police investigation or creating delay, he can legally detain you for that as a violation - penal code 148, its a misdemeanor.

In this idiots case, he was detained/arrested because he was either one disturbing/delaying the officer or too close to the officer and person in the blue car which required some reasonable privacy. He was later RELEASED because (again in CAlifornia) penal code 849(b) allows for an officer after an arrest under his discrestion to RELEASE the arrested person without a warrant and without having the arestee see a juduge/court.

so was the officer in legal rights? Yes
was the boy in legal rights? sort yes sort of no
was the boy a dumb dick? yes

HOWEVER, if your presence, wheather or not your are recording, taking photos, etc is a disturbance in the police investigation or creating delay, he can legally detain you for that as a violation - penal code 148, its a misdemeanor.

In this idiots case, he was detained/arrested because he was either one disturbing/delaying the officer or too close to the officer and person in the blue car which required some reasonable privacy.

How is an officer casually leaning on a car door chatting with the occupants a police investigation? The kid is an annoying twit, but there was no investigation that I could see going. The intent of that code is another thing. I bet the code was originally intended for things like murder scenes, drug busts, etc, where there is a lot going on and people try to get all up in the police's business taking pictures etc. Standing 20 feet away and saying one sentence to the cop was probably not the definition of interfering as intended by the law.

How is an officer casually leaning on a car door chatting with the occupants a police investigation? The kid is an annoying twit, but there was no investigation that I could see going. The intent of that code is another thing. I bet the code was originally intended for things like murder scenes, drug busts, etc, where there is a lot going on and people try to get all up in the police's business taking pictures etc. Standing 20 feet away and saying one sentence to the cop was probably not the definition of interfering as intended by the law.

a regular traffic stop is looked upon as an "investigation"

yea i agree cop was a little bit trigger happy, but legality wise, he was within his limits

yea i agree cop was a little bit trigger happy, but legality wise, he was within his limits

That was in the parking lot of the police station according to the kid. Now it might have been a traffic stop, but it sure didn't look like one. Looked to me like he was talking to someone he knew, possibly another officer.

I've been staying off of the Pro-2A boards for a while now, but this sort of thing gets debated a lot there. I think it was mentioned above by scottwww that we'll never truly have the full story, and should take that into account.

My understanding, IANAL, is that in PA, public servants have no expectation of privacy. Hence, why you don't need a cops permission to record him (audio or video). I don't want to be a test case, but that's my understanding.

I've only started the recorder on my iPhone once during a traffic stop. The cop wanted to disarm me and was upset that I didn't mention to him that I was armed when I was confronted with the question, "Do you have anything I should know about in the car?". I didn't, so I told him no. (PA has no duty to inform - only if directly asked about it). He confirmed in the recording that in fact was how he asked the question, so it's not like he could claim that I lied about the firearms.

I started the recorder, we waited while a Sgt. showed up. The Sgt. basically told the cop to stop trying to make mountains outa mole hills and I went on my way with a warning to slow down. I was by myself and had nothing to do that day but mill around. YMMV.

One Pro-2A group I used to be active in even had a community voicemail setup so that older folks who might not know how to activate their phone's recorder could just dial a number and let it start recording. Some good things came from that for the people of PA.

Like I said, I have no interest in being a test case for some of the bogus stuff that LEOs do... But, it's gotta be helpful, if you're in the right, to have that kind of data in court. Remember, they lied when we beat them up in gym class too...

So what did we see in that first video? ONLY what the guy wanted you to see. This is the big problem with video "evidence." Just because it is video doesn't mean it isn't biased or easily taken out of context, but people want to believe it wholesale.

Maybe the guy was badgering the cop for 15 minutes prior to starting the tape, asking about the raids, trying to get a rise out of the cop. Maybe the cop tells the guy "knock it off, those issues are currently under investigation, and if you keep pestering me about it, I'll arrest for interfering with an on-going investigation." Guy walks off for a few minutes, then comes with his camera to antagonize the cop, and gets his "I was illegally detailed evidence" crap.

Not saying that is what happened, but just keep context in mind when viewing these videos, and that just because it is video doesn't necessarily represent the truth, or what actually happened. Sometimes yes, but when video is taken with a clear objective in mind (getting harassed/arrested) you have to wonder.....

This.

This is why we can't hardly believe a single fucking thing that is posted on the internet or displayed in the media. Nobody knows what really happened but the cop and the kid. Maybe the person in the car. You can't even logically form an opinion about this video. There is no telling what really happened. You can speculate different scenarios, but that's it. It's just hypothesizing.

__________________

"There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice. -Charles de Secondat"

This is why we can't hardly believe a single fucking thing that is posted on the internet or displayed in the media. Nobody knows what really happened but the cop and the kid. Maybe the person in the car. You can't even logically form an opinion about this video. There is no telling what really happened. You can speculate different scenarios, but that's it. It's just hypothesizing.

There isn't enough there to be the only evidence presented in a court case. Because a court case deals with judging a situation based upon the facts or at least a preponderance of evidence.

For the sake of discussion, it could be a fictional account in it's entirety that we use as an example to explore our sense of right and wrong, and to discuss the relationships between the citizen, the government, and the enforcers of the law.

As it is, on it's own, it might be useful in showing that this cop lives up to his bad reputation. Apparently that was why the kid video taped this in the first place. Dumb-ass cop fell right into it.

[BTW: I am not against cops in general. I just don't want people to undergo abuse at the hands of authority. I have two ex-Sheriffs in my family. One retired, the other didn't get re-elected. To my knowledge, they did not fall into the bad cop category.]